The financial accounts of the household sector within the system of national accounts report the aggregate asset holdings and liabilities of all households within a country. In principle, when household wealth surveys are explicitly designed to be representative of all households, aggregating...

This working paper has been presented and discussed at the October 2002 OECD National Accounts Experts Meeting. The objective of the paper is two fold: (1) present comparable results for household financial and non financial assets and liabilities for Europe, the USA and Japan, (2) analyse the...

This study examines from a cross-national perspective the importance of inheritance as a source of private wealth accumulation. Multivariate econometric analyses of harmonized survey data obtained from 11 European countries reveal that inheriting households own considerably more wealth than...